


think of me

by silverscream



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Basically everyone has issues, But the intimacy damn right helps, But they are also the key to each other's problems, F/M, First Time, Late birthday gift for elena i am so sorry i am 3 month late, Loss of Virginity, Mental Breakdown, Not exactly pwp but nearly there, Sex does not magically solve said issues, This monster was worth it i am actually proud, other than that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 11:59:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9606695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverscream/pseuds/silverscream
Summary: "Kiss me," she says, and he cannot hope to have heard her right.





	

"Kiss me."

Cassian cannot hope to have heard her right.

" _Kiss me_ ," she repeats, breathless, her heart in her throat.

They're dancing at Rita's, pressed together in a mass of people, the rage, the passion, the heat burning in her. Nesta twirls and hops, jumps and pushes against him; they're glued to each other, her back against his front, and he doesn't dare put his hands anywhere but on her waist, not until she tells him to.

Cassian can scarcely believe he hears her right, maybe his hearing finally failed him after 500 years, well as he is into his old age, like Feyre and Elain sometimes joke.

But no, he's heard correctly, so he fists his hands in the silk of Nesta's skirt, if only to not grab her and twist her to face him.

It's far too tempting, the thought, so he distracts himself, quite poorly, at that, by humming in her ear.

"Say that again, love," he whispers to the shell of her ear, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair. It's slightly damp with sweat, dark golden strands sticking to her forehead and neck; there's one plastered to her cheekbone, so he raises a hand from its place on her hips, dragging it through the folds of material, feeling for a heartbeat the skin exposed by her dress, right around her ribs.

Cassian fights the urge to let his hand wander underneath her top, even if, splayed on her ribcage as his fingers are, their tips graze the rough edge of something made of lace. He doesn't allow himself too much time to ponder that, though, vaguely recalling that they were in a public space, that they were only two figures in a mass of fae and demi-fae and humans.

So his hand continues its path, passing the delicious slope of her collar bones and the curve of her neck, barely a touch of his fingers on her heated skin enough to make her sway back into him and let her head rest back against his chest. Finally, he brings that hand along the rounded and delicate line of her jaw, reaching the hair glued to her face and combing it away with his fingers.

That's when her eyes, closed up until now, blink and open, the stormy blue in them is clouded in a way that makes Cassian's blood leave his brain. Immediately.

A dainty hand, fine-boned under the sun kissed skin comes up to cup his jaw, her fingers shorter than his, her nails barely long enough to scratch properly.

"I believe you heard me just right," the whisper comes past her lips, rosy and fresh. She looks up at him through her lashes, darkened with kohl, which makes the blue of her eyes stand out even more. She looks ethereal, a being from another world, with her barely parted lips, freckles dusting the bridge of her nose and her chest heaving as she moves her hips against his.

  
Mother take him.

  
He anchors one hand in her skirt, pulling her flush against him while the other one finds purchase underneath the flimsy silk wrapped around her torso, he fingers the lace beneath it, then slips his knuckles underneath, feeling for her breast bone.

Nesta arches her back like a cat and presses herself more firmly against him. Gods, how they fit. A moan escapes her as Cassian traces circles around her bellybutton.

"You don't want me to kiss you right here, love," he rasps in her ear. A delicate snort is his answer, her hand reaching back and fisting in his hair.

She cranes her neck to look at him, and he swears to each and every deity he knows, the lust and the haze clouding her eyes will be the death of him. "Here?" she asks, raising an eyebrow. "I don't want you to kiss me here." A smirk.

  
"I want you to kiss me everywhere."

  
Cassian is fairly certain he has died.

 

His arms wrap around her waist, holding her tight, and he buries his nose in the nook where her neck meets her shoulder. The music in the background rises louder, a sinuous drumbeat accompanied with horns and fiddles. He feels her undulating and shifting in time with it, little gasps marking the rhythm.

They are just two bodies in a small hall full to the brim, and Cassian can't help but think that even so, they are both oddly hidden and vividly exposed all at the same time. He spots an exit through the golden haze of her hair.  
  
Her hands come to rest over his, and warmth floods his body, starting where her fingertips dance on his skin, tracing the tattoos and the scars on his forearms, and it reaches the tips of his toes, the roots of his hair.

It is too much, too much and not enough all at the same time and it takes all of the self control Cassian never believed he had to not throw her over his shoulder and fly through the tavern's ceiling. A tiny voice in the back of his mind whispers that flying through Rita's ceiling isn't necessarily the best idea he's ever had, but really, with Nesta's arse pressed against his groin and her locked into his arms, her full mouth turned to his, close enough to share breath, Cassian can't really think of much else.

Her hooded gaze, the icy blue of a frozen lake, meets his, and she whispers, "Well then?"

He grins, his lips hovering over hers, and he feels the way she arches for him, the way she reaches out and it all makes the curl of his lips turn feral. Pulling away slightly, chuckling breathlessly at the way she snarls at him half-heartedly.

"Not here, love," he evades her mouth, pressing a kiss to the skin of her neck, his hand rising beneath the silk of her top, "not here," he moans in her ear.

He grinds against her back, and Nesta arches against the hardness she feels, and she lets the back of her head rest on his shoulder and moans for him and she is trying to kill him. "Then take me home."

Cassian nods, finally disentangling from her, but still, he keeps her close while trying to find a way through the bustling crowd. No one notices the glint in his eyes, no one notices the sheen of sweat on her midriff and neck, the flush disappearing from her shoulders underneath the embroidered silk wrapped and bound around her torso.

It is a fine thing, to sneak off from the drunken mess of bodies and reach the night air. Shouts and laughter and songs still dance across the streets of Velaris, its light and darkness seeping into Cassian's blood as he wraps his fingers around Nesta's. There is a headiness, a queer sort of allure to the night, it is something that makes the heat in his belly coil and snap with every move, and although Velaris is an entity in itself, always has been and will forever be, Cassian very much doubts it has anything to do with it.

More with Nesta, more with her, wild and wanting and free. He looks at her from the corner of his eye, her hair shines in the charmed streetlight, the grey drapes of silk making her eyes stand out, an impossible shade of greyish blue, and Mother save him, these eyes are looking his way and there is such desire in them that it nearly floors Cassian.

Her small hand tightens around his as they walk, "I'm not having second thoughts," she says resolutely, her voice raspy in the chill of the night. Gooseflesh is errupting on her skin and the fine hairs on the back of his neck and arms all stand at the certainty in her voice. He opens his mouth, unsure of what to answer, but

"Are you?"

His head shoots up at that, gaze boring into hers and Cassian feels his restraint like a leash around his throat, "No," is the definite answer, no, there is little in the world he wants more than he does Nesta, more than he wants this furious human girl turned immortal, but he also knows that there isn't much he can give her, there is nothing but himself and how could that ever be enough-

  
Small hands fist in his doublet, and he startles out of his thoughts to find Nesta looking up at him, frowning spectacularly.

"Stop that," she orders, resolute in all her splendour.

"Stop what?" he counters.

"You know exactly what," she begins, exhaling, "Stop with the forlorn glances and look me in the eye!" there is an edge to her voice, it sounds like it's almost breaking, almost pleading. He lets the small hand underneath his chin raise his face, fingers finding purchase against his cheeks, the rasp on them, the strands of hair falling out of his hair tie.

What he finds makes his heart constrict in his throat. Nesta's eyes are shining with something unfathomable, something he does not allow himself to look at, until she takes his face and cups his head and forces him to meet her.

"I am not here for anyone else," says Nesta, and his heart thunders in his ears. "I am here for you. I am here because I want you, and because I've wanted you until I felt I was going insane, and you," she punctuates, raising her eyebrows, as a smile threatens to curl her lips upwards, "you have been a pain in my arse."

Indignation rumbles in his belly, quenching a tiny bit of the want that erupted inside of him, and he fists his hands in the folds of her skirt, bringing her hips closer.

"I have been a pain in your arse?!" an impish smile almost making its way on his face. "Don't you think you're a bit of a pot calling the kettle black, Nesta, love?"

"No."

A raised eyebrow, his wings flapping as if to challenge her.

"Maybe a little," she concedes. "Not my point," she looks up at him and huffs in exasperation. "Stop damn well distracting me, I am trying to say something here and you're not helping me, and so help me Mother, if I have to beat it into your thick skull that you are worth wanting, I will and then-"

His mouth is on hers, his heart is in his throat, and he pulls her to him finally, finally, finally, acquiesceing to her request.

His lips are soft and sweet and demanding and a rush seeps in Nesta. Nesta who had come tonight, feeling naked and foreign, wearing clothes belonging to a culture she didn't yet feel quite a part of, no matter that her very being sang when the winds howled, when the stars danced, when fire burned bright, when everything in her whispered immortal, immortal, immortal.

So tonight, she said, she'll be leaving the doubts and the madness behind, she will let herself go, if only for once.

Until she had seen him, that is, and really, if she was meant to be free tonight, free of her constraints, free of her fears, free of everything, she might as well take what she wanted, because so much longing is bad for one, and she has burned for him for so, so long.

And even now she burns, she is a flame alive in his arms, and she had not known what she was asking for, had not known what it was like to be wanted and to belong to someone the way Cassian does. The way he can give himsel so naturally, damn the consequences.

He does something to her mouth, it must be some sort of ridiculous magic, because every press of those full lips against her, every little scratch of those rugged cheeks against hers makes her squirm, makes her rub her thighs together in search of some sort of friction and it should scare her, the way he makes her lose her head.

But it does not, because she trusts Cassian, she trusts him in a way she does not quite understand, but is steeped in the hours upon hours of darkness and hatred and resentment out of which they'd coaxed each other and Nesta does not know how she came to understand how his mind works. How fucked in the head he must be, because who could possibly see her as salvation, she could never save anyone, ever.

And then came this idiot, this hulking monster of a man, lost in ways she couldn't quite wrap her head around, but she only knew that his touch made the anger and madness go away and his voice and his eyes, heavens, his eyes.

He is ruthless and rough, his arms are snaking around her and she is lightheaded and nearly gone.

She reaches up on impulse and tightens her hands in his hair. For a moment, she is afraid she pulled too hard, that she hurt him somehow, but then this sound reaches her ears, this deep rumbling sound comes out of his mouth and reverbrates so deep in her bones, and she wants more, she craves more.

  
She thrusts her hips to his, and he chuckles, breaking their kiss and resting his forehead to hers, half-lidden eyes dark enough to swallow the night whole.

"Not here, love," he breathes against her bruised lips.

"It's never here with you," she answers, letting her hands caress the sides of his throat, his chest underneath the open collar of his doublet, his sides.

"If there weren't for the odd chance that some grandmother would come feed the street cats at midnight," he begins, tracing words and swirls on her bare midriff, hands gliding upwards and circling her breasts, feather soft touches riling her up even as she giggles at his absurdities, making him smile brightly, "as I said, if said grandma wouldn't come, I'd press you against a wall,"

"What wall?" she asks against his lips, playing along, undulating her hips to the forgotten rhythm of the music inside some boisterous tavern.

"Say this one," her back meets cool brick and paint, and the chill would be too much, except he is there, his arms rest on either side of her head, his head bowed almost to level with hers and Nesta forgets what it means to be cold.

"And what would you do?" she raises her face invitingly, something inside her roaring to be let out, and she writhes against him until he blocks her hips with his, and she bites her lip to keep in the sounds threatening to come out.

"I would," he begins, taking a moment to let himself breathe. She has no such luxury, she cannot gasp, she cannot do anything but burn, "I would start by touching you here," a hand slides against her bare middle, and never has a simple touch made her gasp like that, "I would find all these tiny places, Nesta, places where all it takes is one finger, one little bit of skin to make you moan."

As if in answer, the heat between her legs throbs, and for all that it's impossible for him to know, he chuckles and slides one of his thighs, muscular and lean like the rest of him, between her knees and it rises, rises, rises, until it reaches there and Nesta finally has the friction she so wanted.

"That is such a place, sweetheart." he suckles at the skin on her throat, "but there are many, many more."

"And I intend to find them all, every single last one of them, so that I can drive you insane with pleasure."

Her hands in his doublet are pulling him back to her, back on her, when a shrill noise echoes on the empty paved street, and they both look.

"Well, fuck."

A merry band of party-goers is stumbling across their drunken feet, unaware of them huddled together in the shadowy niche of a pink painted building, and Cassian is equally unimpressed and exasperated as he looks back at Nesta, and presses a quick kiss to her mouth. She is almost ashamed of the way she chases his lips. "How about we leave here, hmm?" he says, looking into her eyes.

The heat in them is almost unbearable, the way only ice can be hot, or rather, cold enough to burn him alive. Her nod is certain, and he grins, alive with the desire in his veins, and the night sky calling to him, so he gathers her in his arms, murmurs a soft "hold on tight" and kisses the skin behind her ear before spreading his wings and shooting into the sky.

A loud yelp near his ear. Nesta has flown with him before, but never at night, and never with her arms and legs closed around him like so.

He feels the weight of her breasts pressed against his chest, and he reminds himself that there are only a couple of layers between them, and gods, it is heaven to feel her, unbound by her corsets and hoops and all the useless things humans have invented.

He feels the tips of her breasts through the silk, pleasantly hardened, and it makes it hard to concentrate on navigating the air currents on the night wind.

He thanks whatever gods are listening when he catches a glimpse of the House of Wind. It is empty tonight, since it's his turn to watch over Velaris this month. Nesta having come with him only made coming home an even sweeter ordeal.

Speaking of sweet things, the way Nesta eases onto her feet is adorable, her toes are likely digging into the ground, and he swears to himself he'll take her out flying more often, but until then, it's enough that he sees her half glowing in the dim firelight, flushed and panting, her freckles standing out against her pale skin.

"Well?" she asks, having somewhat caught her breath.

Cassian takes one of her hands and tries to pour his soul into her shining eyes. He raises it to his face and presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist, the gesture intimate enough to rob Nesta of breath.  
  
"Lead the way."

She throws a half smile his way, then laces her fingers with his and leads him along the cozy corridors. She places his hand on her waist, and where skin meets skin, there is a spark inside of her. Even if he is aware of it, Cassian only smirks in that insufferable way and traces her ribs, his touch building up something inside her.

  
They walk and walk, fingers forming languid paths on each other's skin - Nesta's lower back is a victim of his caresses, but she also takes care to trace the patterns of his tattoos, all swirling around sinew and muscle. By the time they reach Cassian's chamber, they are both breathing more heavily than they should and he is pinning her to the door, tangling his fingers in her damp hair and slanting his mouth to hers.

She opens her mouth in a wordless gasp and he takes the opportunity to slide his tongue against hers and explore the roof of her mouth.

His hands keep touching her everywhere. Down her back, underneath her top, between her shoulder blades, down the slope of her waist, palming her arse and bringing her closer.

Nesta parts her thighs, allowing him to slide between them. The movement is sweet and heavy, her hips rolling in a sinuous dance, until he can't stand it any longer.

He nips her lower lip, rich and red, and starts pulling her voluminous skirts upwards until he manages to get through to the skin of her legs, fresh and smooth, the flesh soft and pliant. Her head arches back against the door, hitting it slightly, as his calloused fingers rise higher and higher.

However, instead of reaching the spot between her legs, the one that caused her such pleasure and relief, Cassian's fingers dig in the the back of her thighs, lifting her up and aligning them. She feels his hardness against her thigh and bucks against it, causing a strangled, broken sound to melt off his beautiful lips.

The House of Wind is empty but for them and the soft breeze brushes past them from the open window, a cool balm on their heated skin. Nesta looks at him through her kohl-darkened lashes, feeling as if she were boiling and burning from the inside out. Their gazes meet, and the heady golden gleam in his dark eyes is enough to make her breath hitch.

He presses open mouthed kisses to her jaw, slow and sweet and he nips down her throat. He murmurs sweet nothings to her pulse, glides his hips against her with purpose, and it works, gods, it works, she is flushed and wrecked and gone, and she moans his name in his ear, and "inside, Cassian, let's-let's go inside"

How she manages to string words together is beyond her, but Nesta does, and she melts a little on the inside when she feels him pant into her shoulder, warm air tickling her, making her eyes roll into the back of her head and heat gather in her belly.

Cassian wants, Cassian wants like he has never wanted before, and it is a conscious effort he has to do, to not fuck the woman he loves against a thrice damned door, idiotic fool he is. He shifts her weight on this hips, on his other arm, just so he can reach and fumble with the doorknob, finally, finally opening the damn thing and kicking it shut behind him.

Nesta curls around him, a sweet and sinful weight, all grey silks and shining hair, her tongue in his mouth and her naked thighs wrapped around his hips, mindful of his wings.

They finally reach the bed, and Cassian sits down, allowing for her knees to hit the soft mattress. It is not the first time she is in his bed, but it is the first when she is panting and wet and flushed with lust.

"May-may I?" he asks against her lips and her fingers tangle in his hair, and he lays a hand across her back, brushing the embroidered silk that is wrapped around her torso. He feels her breasts, hardened even at the faintest touch from him and it is too much, far too much for his poor heart to take.

"Yes," she mutters to the skin of his neck, "yes," she whispers breathlessly as she bites him and Cassian moans loudly, pressing kisses to her warm skin.

It is all Cassian has waited for, and he fists a hand in her hair and palms her breast through the silk. Soft pants escape her bruised lips as her hips shift against his, driving him half insane with want and Cassian swallows those sound, takes them from her and hides them in his heart, because never was there a sound so lovely, one so heartbreakingly sweet.

Her tongue meets his at the entrance of her mouth, and she makes up for the lack of experience through sheer bull-headed desire. She will not wilt in his arms, she will not be putty, she will take him as he has taken her heart, Nesta decides, because fair is fair and he has no right to make her tremble like that.

So she grounds her her hips against his, pressing against him until she feels the breath catch in his throat. Nesta tugs at the laces of his vest, traces the tattoos and scars swirling on his skin, his good luck charms and the reminders of his defeats, all permanently etched into his very being.

He throws his vest somewhere in the back of his room, leaving his skin gloriously bare under her touch, and he kicks off his boots. Cassian whirls them around, bows his head and trails kisses down her neck, the slope of her shoulder, willfully ignoring her breasts, which earns him a disgruntled moan from her, then pressing his open mouth to her bare midriff.

His hands snake underneath her skirts, finding the tiny clasps and delicate bows that hold them together, and tugs them apart, letting the material pool around her.

A wet kiss to her inner thigh, then his mouth flush between her legs, as she wraps them around his broad shoulders. The first touch of his tongue through her smallclothes sends her back arching off the bed and the infuriating man chuckles. He pushes her hips back against the bed, and gods, the sight of him, wings aflutter and hair wild, eyes dark as they glimpse up at her from between her legs, it nearly undoes Nesta.

He rakes his fingers across the skin of her thighs, finally, mercifully taking her smallclothes off and kissing her. Nesta's eyes roll into the back of her head and she is weightless, lost, there is only the pleasure he brings her, the imprint of calloused hands, warm and loving, on her belly and hips and leg, there is only the memory of him, etched forever on the backs of her eyelids.

This is what Nesta will dream of, this is what she will think back on, the heat inside them both, consuming and binding.

She fists her hands in his dark curls, feels the brush of his wings against her own skin as her toes curl. He wraps his lips around her, uses his fingers, his tongue, whatever damned magic the gods have bestowed upon him, and it all comes to this moment of pleasure so intense, it nearly becomes pain.

  
Nesta is flushed and breathing hard, completely at ease with her nakedness as she falls back into the pillows. She closes her eyes, resting, and she feels silent, easy, simple caresses on her body.

A finger skimming across the edge of her top. Nesta had felt awfully exposed when she had first put it on, but now even the slightest of silk feels constricting, and so she wordlessly allows Cassian to free the tiny buttons that hold it together, breathing deeply when he finally takes it off her.

He traces kisses upwards the length of her body, soft and hard all at once, and Cassian still feels drunk on the taste of her, he still wants to listen to her moans again and again.

Her breasts are soft, filling his palms, the rosy nipples already turned dark under his earlier ministrations. He lets a finger circle the puckered flesh, a knuckle brush against it, teasing the moans out of Nesta. Gods. His heart beats wildly in his chest, a strange sort of reverence choking him, making it hard for the air to reach his lungs.

Cassian kisses the underside of her breast, nipping slightly at it. Her fingers comb through his hair, the bite of her nails making the heat in his belly flare. He has been painfully hard for some time, with only the thought of her, her hips and mouth and lips and breasts, the warmth of her, the way only ice can be warm.

It is her eyes again, they are what nearly drive him to the brink of madness, an icy midmorning sky and they are closer and closer and closer

She anchors herself to him, has been pulling at him, at his shoulders and hair and hips, until they are nose to nose, and he can count her freckles and her lashes and the colours she takes when flushing.

Nesta smiles upwards at him, and it is both innocent and wild, triumphant and sweet and Cassian is struck breathless.

Their mouths meet, the headiness of this kiss so vastly different than any other before. There is no rush, there is nothing hurried between them, it is only want and molten passion, the kind that burns slowest and brightest all at once.

She wraps her legs around him, ankles cross at the small of his back. And Nesta nearly trembles, not in fear, necessarily, but in anticipation. It eats away at her, it consumes her whole and she feels him at her entrance, smooth and strong and she holds him close, because she wants this, she has wanted him for too long.

Her heart beats wildly in her chest as he enters her, slowly, carefully, and she feels him holding back, allowing her to adjust. There is some pain. Or rather, discomfort, an alien, foreign sort of feeling. Nesta battles it with all her might, but then the pull of his lips carries her away.

She looks up, and realises he is talking to her, whispering on and on in a tone that makes her melt.

Nesta has never wanted empty platitudes, hollow flattery or sweet nothings laid at her feet. Yet she craves the warm, raw quality of his voice, she craves his warmth as she buries her nose in the rough underside of his jaw, in the nook of his neck, right above his pulse. She kisses it, drunk on the sound and feel and taste of his heartbeat, the ends of his hair tickling her nose.

"Move," she whispers, holding onto him with everything she has, "move, move, move"

He does, gods, he does, and the pain ebbs away with each thrust, becoming mild and strange and nearly nonexistent, just a sense of being that washes through her.

Then Cassian raises himself on an elbow, mindful of her hair, caresses a hand down the side of her face, with such heartbreaking gentleness, that a shiver runs down Nesta's spine.

He holds her gaze, gods, his eyes both quite and mad with a glint of magic and she loves it, she loves the way he looks at her, the way she can see into her very soul.

She wonders if he can do the same and finds that she does not mind it.

His hand floats down the side of her neck, quiet and certain. And his mouth follows, igniting something deep inside her.

Cassian's wings, beautiful and scarred with silvery lines, flare above them, and she stops to look at them. His fingers brush against her breast, making her breath hitch, he traces the curve of her waist, the dip in her navel, the flare of her hips. Down her belly, and soft, slow, right to the place where they are joined.

"Look at me, love," and Nesta cannot fight the urge. The pads of his fingers, roughened by years and years and years of fighting, press against something in her, and instantly, she feels the moan building inside of her, the heat starting anew.

His smile, the slight turn of his full mouth, the crinkle on the edge of his eyes, it fills her heart, and when they move again, the discomfort is almost gone, and the feeling that remained is almost too much to bear.

It is a continuous change, the slow ebb of their bodies, restraint and release, craving and taking and Nesta loses herself in it.

  
Again, she feels herself get closer and closer, her pleasure building up, and she feels herself tighten around him and gods, Cassian is looking at her, his eyes gleam almost golden in the low light, they are what keeps her from falling into this unknown abyss and she hangs on tight to them, to him, and

" _Nesta, Nesta, Nesta"_

the mantra of her name on those beautiful lips, and the way he seems quite as gone ad she is, it is the final push she needed, and she takes his mouth and she falls apart under him.

  
He holds onto her thighs, they are locked around him and he is increasingly frantic, peppering her with kisses, tracing adorations in her flesh and she wraps herself whole around him, closing him into herself and not letting go and

"Come, love, come, Cassian, _come, come, come"_

and there is almost pain on his face, the abandon and want and gods, it is love, it is love and Nesta laughs and cries at the same time when she realises that, he loves her and she will not let him go, not ever, and he comes with a sound so fragile, so vulnerable, that her heart constricts.

He is hers and she will hold him close. He is hers and she will keep him safe.

Cassian falls on the pillow beside her, careful not to crush her. It is a pleasant weight, them two together on the crumpled sheets and Nesta smiles at him, sated and full and tired.

He moves a hand, brushing the damp hair out of her forehead, and his heart hurts, it is too full, and oh. She has ddimples good gods, she has dimples and a savagely innocent smile, and Cassian hopes to hell and back that he has not hurt her.

He thought he would die, the moment he felt her break around him, the way her maidenhead tore and he has harmed too many people, it has cost so many so much, the last time he had allowed himself to be this selfish, and the fear is gnawing at him again. It grows, this dread, deep in his stomach, because there are things he has done, and burdens he can, and will, bear until the end of time, but harming this girl, this precious, angry, wonderful girl is not something he could do and live with himself afterwards.

There is a hand on his face, a cool, pleasant hand, soft and gentle. His eyes rise to her, her hooded eyes, her tangled hair, her red mouth.

"Come here, Cassian."

He does, reflexively, following the amber tone of her voice, clear and certain.

Her hand traces the side of his jaw, unshaved for a few days, her nails scratch his skin and she tilts his chin up, pressing a kiss to his yet open mouth.

It is neither chaste nor wanton, neither regretful nor frantic. It is strange and instead of the farewell Cassian expected, it is a new greeting.

She smiles at him when she falls back against the pillow, and the heart stops in his chest.

"I love you," she whispers, soft like a dream. It boggles the mind, the fragility she allows in that admission. Cassian is not worthy of it.

But the lie cannot stand, the truth in him cannot remain hidden after that.

"As do I you," he says, and it is for the first time, that he actually feels naked before her, small and wicked and awful and afraid.

Yet her eyes light up with something he is not brave enough to face because she cannot love him, not - "stop that.

"I was going to make a joke, you silly man. I cannot do that if you beat yourself over things that are not your fault," she winks conspiratorially and hugs herself close to him.

"And what would you I rather do, lady?" he smiles down at her.

"Hm," she ponders, purring at the endearment, until she decides on "you tell me a joke."

He sighs content in her hair, tangled and damp, the weight in his chest dissipating some, and wraps his arms round her.

Cassian presses his lips to her cheek, tracing a line to the shell of her ear, and whispers his answer, "we both need a bath, love".

The tremor down her spine is instantly countered by her snort.

"Funny."

"I am not joking," he challenges, an eyebrow rising at her.

"Neither am I getting out of this bed."

Resolve is settled deep in her voice, a playful tone making it sweeter. Cassian snakes his arms around her frame before she can protest.

Nesta yelps as he jumps out of bed, her in tow. Her hold onto his shoulders is strong enough to bruise, but he does not object, of the shit eating grin on his lips is to be trusted.

She beats a hand against his back,

"Why, you little-"

Cassian flares his wings behind them, like a cat would stretch its back, and, with his smirk in place, kisses her on the nose, effectively interrupting her.

"Hush now, love," he says, kissing away her amused frown. "Let us instead find the closest bathtub." Her snort only belies the sardonic smile on Nesta's face, because yes, she needs a bath, and yes, it is not quite so unpleasant, being carried around like a queen, when she still feels a bit sore, and more than a bit lazy.

She prays there are no servants around the house this late at night, though, because neither she, nor Cassian bothered with anything to cover themselves up

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY VERY VERY LATE BIRTHDAY, ELENA. I did promise i would finish it. 
> 
> Nvm that though. I am very anxious if i got the characters right, i hope i did them justice, and i also rly hope to have given you guys a realistic resolution (or shall we say continuation?) of these two idiots.
> 
> Cassian and Nesta deserve all the happines in the world gosh, and you all tell me what you thought of this fic, since i am severely out of my comfort zone, for some reason. 
> 
> Cheers! ;)
> 
> ps yes the title is yet another phantom reference, i am trash that way.


End file.
